Skype and Facebook have collaborated before, but this time Skype’s made connecting with your Facebook friends ridiculously easy. As of the time of this writing, you can now connect to your Facebook account through Skype. Once that’s done, you can choose to chat with any Facebook friend you see on Skype. Below, you’ll find out how all of this went down for me when I tried to connect to Facebook through Skype.
For a long time now, Skype has been a trusted name when it comes to communicating with someone half way across the world on the cheap. Now that Skype has teamed up with Facebook, it is even easier to connect with someone you want to chat with. Of course, the great thing about Skype is that you can see the person you’re chatting with via webcam. This new partnership will make networking with anyone you know simple.
A Bold Move for Skype
It may seem strange, but there are some people out there who don’t like social networks. These people prefer to keep distant friends and family members distant. Admittedly, the people who aren’t network savvy probably aren’t using Skype either, but those that are might be turned off by the new Facebook connect. Thankfully, Skype has not made it mandatory to connect to Facebook in order to use Skype – that would have been disastrous.
Not only is this new connecting a bold move for Skype, but it’s also a great move. If you haven’t used Skype before, you’re really missing out on a great communication tool. Skype rates are super low, you can chat and video chat (now improved) with anyone on your Facebook list (or Skype list), and you can even instant message these people through Skype. Alright, you might not want all of those annoying Facebook people instant messaging you through Skype, but they can send you a text through the Facebook Messenger app anyway.
At First Try
After connecting to Facebook through my Skype account, it took me awhile to get used to the new Facebook/Skype interface. It was possible to see Facebook updates, but I didn’t get a list of friends who I could contact through Skype. It’s possible that this is not available in my area yet. Or, it might be possible that the Facebook connection isn’t quite up and running yet. Note that you do have to have the latest version of Skype to make this all work, though this isn’t my problem.
As far as the new Facebook and Skype interface goes, I did find it a bit tricky at first. Skype would do well to provide users with a few more cues as to how the whole thing goes together. Aside from that, it’s really relatively easy to connect to Facebook and chat with people in this manner.
When someone gets a Skype call through Facebook, that person can answer the call directly from the social media platform. I can see why many people will use this service in the near future, but those who are opposed to Facebook may ignore the new Skype venture altogether.